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Yudkin (1992) Beethoven's Mozart Quartet
Yudkin (1992) Beethoven's Mozart Quartet
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Beethoven's "Mozart" Quartet
BY JEREMY YUDKIN
' The Anxiety oflnfluence: A Theory of Poetry (New York: Oxford University Press,
1973), 141 (italics original). I would like here to express my thanks to several
colleagues, whose help has materially affected the final form of this essay: Lewis
Lockwood, who read an entire draft and made many cogent suggestions; John
Daverio, who drew my attention to Schoenberg's comments on the minuet of K. 464;
and Evan Bonds, who is working on a book on the confrontation of nineteenth-
century symphonists with Beethoven and who was enormously persuasive regarding
the methodology of my own work.
2 Nineteenth-Century Music, trans. J. Bradford Robinson, California Studies in
19th-Century Music, vol. 5 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California
Press, 1989; original edition, Wiesbaden: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, 1980),
33.
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BEETHOVEN'S "MOZART" QUARTET 3I
shadow, the string quartet etiolated, concerto and symphony evolved
into hybrid forms or were grafted onto alien stock.
And yet Beethoven himself had shadows to deal with. Publicly
and privately compared to the prodigy Mozart as a boy, Beethoven
grew up with Mozart's music in his ears, and his example (both
literally and metaphorically) before him. Mozart died when
Beethoven was not quite twenty-one years old, the very model of late-
eighteenth-century genius now canonized by immortality. The fol-
lowing year Beethoven was sent to Vienna to study with Haydn,
acknowledged now as the greatest composer in Europe. Beethoven
was to receive "Mozart's spirit from Haydn's hands."3 Formal lessons
lasted from 1792 to 1793, and the association between the older man
and the young rebel, complex and fraught with tensions though it
was, continued informally for some time after Haydn's return from
London in i795.
Starting a career as a composer in the shadow of Mozart and as the
prot6g6 of Haydn: this, if anything, is a prescription for anxiety.
Beethoven was well aware of the comparison he sought: in early years
he insisted upon it ("I firmly maintain that only Mozart would arrange
for other instruments the works he composed for the pianoforte; and
Haydn could do this too. Without wishing to force my company on
these two great men, I make the same statement about my own
pianoforte sonatas also . . .");4 later he adopted an attitude more
self-deprecating ("Do not rob Handel, Haydn, and Mozart of their
laurel wreaths. They are entitled to theirs, but I am not yet entitled
to one.")5
Dahlhaus points up clearly the paradox of nineteenth-century
attempts to come to terms with Beethoven's achievement.6 You
imitate the master in order to become original, but in so doing you
sacrifice the quality for which you worship him: originality. It is
precisely indicative of the radical aesthetic dichotomy between the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that Beethoven was not troubled
by this paradox. Many of his early works from the years in Bonn (the
Rondino, WoO 25; the Piano Quartets, WoO 36; the Trio for Piano,
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32 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY
Flute, and Bassoon, WoO 37; the Octet, op. I03) as well as some of
the early works from Vienna (the Trio for Violin, Viola, and Cello,
op. 3; the Sextet for Two Clarinets, Two Horns, and Two Bassoons,
op. 7') are imitations of Mozart. For he learned, with Quintilian, that
It is from these and other authors worthy of our study that we should
draw our vocabulary, the variety of our figures, and our method of
composition, while we turn our minds to the models of excellence. For
there can be no doubt that a great portion of art lies in imitation.7
7 "Ex his ceterisque lectione dignis auctoribus et verborum sumenda copia est et
varietas figurarum et componendi ratio, turn ad exemplum virtutum omnium mens
dirigenda. Neque enim dubitari potest, quin artis pars magna contineatur imita-
tione." Institutio Oratoria of Quintilian, vol. 4 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1958), 74.
8 Lewis Lockwood has suggested that we replace these words with the more
accurate (and less anachronistic) term "imitation" technique. See his "On 'Parody' a
Term and Concept in I6th-Century Music," in Aspects of Medieval and Renaissance
Music: A Birthday Offering to Gustave Reese, ed. Jan LaRue et al. (New York, 1966;
reprint, New York: Pendragon, 1978), 567-75. See also Howard Mayer Brown,
"Emulation, Competition, and Homage: Imitation and Theories of Imitation in the
Renaissance," this JOURNAL 35 (I982): 1-48.
9 Charles Rosen proposes a simpler, descriptive model, in which imitation ranges
from plagiarism to complete transformation; see "Influence: Plagiarism and Inspira-
tion," i9th Century Music 4 (I980): 87-100. A remarkably systematic instance of
transformation ("paraphrase") and the use of models is described in J. Peter
Burkholder, "'Quotation' and Paraphrase in Ives's Second Symphony," i9th Century
Music ii (1987): 3-25. In an earlier essay Burkholder demonstrated the permanent
nature of musical allegiance and the enduring model of Brahms for composers of the
last one hundred years; see idem, "Brahms and Twentieth-Century Classical Music,"
i9th Century Music 8 (1984): 75-83. Dahlhaus liked simply to distinguish imitatio from
aemulatio (Nineteenth-Century Music, 27 and 324).
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BEETHOVEN'S "MOZART" QUARTET 33
,o One aspect of this relationship has been well analyzed in Wolfram Steinbeck,
"Mozarts 'Scherzi': Zur Beziehung zwischen Haydns Streichquartetten Op. 33 und
Mozarts Haydn-Quartetten," Archiv fiir Musikwissenschaft 41 (1984): 208-31.
" The great strength of Leonard G. Ratner's book, Classic Music: Expression, Form,
and Style (New York: Schirmer, 1980) is its clear exposition of the role of convention
in the Classic style.
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34 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY
" Much of this essay is spent explaining this statement. A simple instance is
provided by comparing the opening phrases of Mozart's Piano Concerto in B-flat, K.
595 (his last) and Beethoven's "Second" Piano Concerto in B-flat, op. 19 (his first).
Mozart's concerto was completed in i791; Beethoven's was begun before i793,
though not published until 8o0i. It is scored for exactly the same orchestra as
Mozart's. Mozart's concerto begins with a dramatic opposition: a lyrical phrase in the
strings, piano, answered by a short descending arpeggio, forte and in dotted rhythm,
in the woodwinds. Beethoven borrows the idea, not the tunes (though a case may be
made here for some thematic resemblance). His concerto opens with loud, dotted-
rhythm arpeggios in the whole orchestra, answered by a short lyrical phrase, piano,
in the strings alone. The contrast is the same, though Beethoven has reversed the
elements. There are many other such instances to be found in this pair of works.
'3 In his many writings Leonard Meyer has perceptively analyzed the issue of
historical style and the "culturally experienced listener." See, for example, his Music,
the Arts, and Ideas: Patterns and Predictions in Twentieth-Century Culture (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1967) and Style and Music: Theory, History, Ideology
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989).
'4 Beethovens Streichquartette: Versuch einer technischen Analyse, 3rd ed. (Leipzig:
Siegel, 1921).
'5 Joseph Kerman, The Beethoven Quartets (New York: Knopf, 1966). Kerman
traces connections between the two slow movements with some care. In the
Beethoven finale he determines that one theme has been "lifted" from Mozart, but he
characterizes only vaguely the other debts he finds in that movement (the movement
as a whole, the last measures, the retransition, the bridge in the recapitulation). The
elusive epithet he relies on in all these cases is "Mozartean."
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BEETHOVEN'S "MOZART" QUARTET 35
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36 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY
First Version of Beethoven's G Major Quartet, Op. 18, No. 2," Music and Letters 58
(1977): 127-52; and idem, "Beethovens Streichquartette Op. 18," in Beethoven und
Bohmen: Beitriige zu Biographie und Wirkungsgeschichte Beethovens, ed. Brandenburg and
Gutierrez-Denhoff (Bonn: Beethoven-Haus, 1988), 259-310.
22 I take 8oo as the year of "completion" for op. 18, no. 5, despite the fact that
Brandenburg suggests mid-I799. The year 18oo seems more secure for the finished
work for the following reasons: (i) The sketches that have survived from mid-i 799 are
very far from the finished (published) version. (2) We know that an entire sketchbook
is missing from mid-i799 to the spring of 18oo. (3) Beethoven took the opportunity
in 18oo substantially to revise op. 18, nos. I and 2. (4) It is not until the middle of
December I8oo that Beethoven mentions having his quartets ready and sold to the
publisher (they were not published until 80oi).
23 Kerman, The Beethoven Quartets, 59.
24 This is one of the ways in which Mozart imitates Haydn's op. 33. Four quartets
of that set (nos. I, 2, 3, and 4) contain rearrangements of the inner movements. Three
of Mozart's "Haydn" quartets have their minuets in second place.
2s5 None of Haydn's op. 33 contains a theme and variations, but the second
movement of his op. 20o, no. 4, is a theme and variations movement in D minor.
K. 464 is the only one of Mozart's "Haydn" quartets to contain a slow movement in
this form.
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BEETHOVEN'S "MOZART" QUARTET 37
Table i
Comparison of Movement Markings, Keys, Meters, and Forms of the Four
Movements of Mozart's String Quartet in A Major, K. 464, and Beethoven's
String Quartet in A Major, Op. 18, No. 5
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38 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY
29 Here, too, Beethoven was not quite the innovator he seems: Haydn prefaces
the last movement (presto) of his op. 54, no. 2, with an extended (fifty-five-measure)
adagio. The movement concludes with a modified reprise of the adagio. Mozart's G-
Minor String Quintet, K. 516, has a long adagio introduction to its last movement.
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BEETHOVEN'S "MOZART" QUARTET 39
Example I
Mozart, String Quartet in A Major, K. 464, first movement, Allegro, mm. 1-45
and 84-87
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Neue Ausgabe saimtlicher Werke. Serie VII: Kammer-
musik; Werkgruppe 20: Streichquartette und Quartette mit einem Blasintrument;
Abteilung 1: Streichquartette; Bd. 2. Ed. Ludwig Finscher. Kassel: Birenreiter,
1962. Reprinted by permission of Baerenreiter Music Corporation.
Aflegro
Violin 1 .. . "rIJ o
Violin2 _ _ __f
d 0, - O
Viola
Violoncello __of__-_Ia
Ii ' 1
,r~~ ~ 11 -1
OP
, 1f
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40 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY
Example i (continued)
Lk
--- 1 1 1 . :J
I
F
r
I
I I-e
cre - -I sen - Ido
do
cre .
T..
,, .'.
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BEETHOVEN'S "MOZART" QUARTET 41
Example I (continued)
J - -I I I- _ A I ..
eih-esr pnigsaeetcn e
Example 2
Mozart, String Quartet in A Major, K. 464, first movement, mm. 1-8, first violin
only, rebarred in 2/4
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42 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY
The allowances made for the reading in triple meter would have to
take into account the harmonic rhythm, especially the relative
strength of the cadential chord at the beginning of the (original)
measure 4 and the slightly increased strength of the cadential down-
beat on the (original) measure 8, because of its return to the tonic and
because it is preceded by a dotted half note on the fifth degree in the
bass. Neither of these allowances completely undermines a reading in
2/4.30 They bring into balance what would otherwise be an unam-
biguously duple statement. The potent tension of this quartet lies
precisely in the balance among its strongly multivalent tendencies.
One further point. The ambiguity of the meter is helped at this
critical juncture of the piece, the beginning, by the solo texture of the
music. Most of the notes of the first violin's phrase(s) are played
without an accompaniment that would otherwise establish underlying
metrical patterns. This point will be taken up again later.
A further eight measures (see Example i, mm. 8-16) present
another pair of antecedent-consequent phrases (4 + 4). Here more
striking contrasts are introduced. Instead of piano answered by piano,
forte is answered by piano; and the four-bar forte phrase is itself
broken into two-bar segments. The texture changes radically to
unison (cello an octave below). The second segment reiterates the
D#-DI problem (whispering E minor); and Mozart introduces one
more rhythmic transformation: the forte segments contain two clear
6/8 measures (mm. 9 and II).3' Against this transformation the 2/4
duple pulse continues unchecked.
Of course, this new antecedent-consequent pair functions as a
consequent to the previous pair. And all four of these phrases are
linked, for they all, in different ways, relay the pickup/dotted-quarter-
note/eighth-notes motive.
The last of the phrases (mm. I 2-16) not only grounds the harmony
(V/IV-IV-I\-V-I) but also removes the chromatic burrs, refashions
the indirection of the previous melodic lines into a smooth and
continuous descent, and summarizes the metrical potentialities ex-
plored thus far. Measure 13 is a 6/8 bar for the first violin. A tie makes
explicit the 2/4 meter in the second violin. The viola and cello revert
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BEETHOVEN'S "MOZART" QUARTET 43
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44 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY
32 For a useful survey of the meanings inherent in this term, see David A.
Sheldon, "The Concept galant in the 18th Century," The Journal of Musicological
Research 9 (1989): 89-io8.
33 In looking only for thematic connections between the first movements, Kerman
misses everything else. Of Beethoven's Allegro he writes: "Grace and ease the
movement does possess; in places it betrays a strongly Mozartean flavor. The
principal theme itself, save for tiny details, could have been written by Mozart .. ."
(Kerman, The Beethoven Quartets, 57). Kerman searches through the K6chel catalogue
to find a parallel theme to that crafted by Beethoven but finds none. He finally hits
upon a model in Beethoven's own Violin Sonata, op. 12, no. 2.
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BEETHOVEN'S "MOZART" QUARTET 45
Example 3
Beethoven, String Quartet in A Major, op. 18, no. 5, first movement, Allegro,
mm. 1-43 and 219-24
Allegro . -)
Violin 1 fiY=HI_-F
Violin 2C f f
Viola L
Violoncello """_"
SO
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46 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY
Example 3 (continued)
e?cresc.
fi I" i A -,+- 40,, , i 1
cresc. /
cresc.
crest.-
cresc. f j
c resc.s
.....,'--6..j-
,. . ] I , P' i i',J " " ',c '
:=" "i~ " " 'd - -4
+
... .i k ,lAV,,
-----------------.,- i I' ?
AVAfI T
Ad f, 13,t
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BEETHOVEN'S "MOZART" QUARTET 47
Example 3 (continued)
A t r v i : , ,I o__Ti
PP
pp
.,%.--; r opp
/ --ie
p:..o 21 ?p
-pp p, - "
lot- C ,.
rest. ./
cresc. f
CresciTf
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48 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY
34 By the last two decades of the eighteenth century, opening movements in either
3/4 or 6/8 are relatively rare. Of the forty-nine quartets published by Haydn and
Mozart in these years, only six have opening movements in 3/4 and only three begin
with movements in 6/8. The only quartet of op. 33 (1782) that has an opening
movement in anything other than a simple duple meter is op. 33, no. 6. Mozart
imitates this opening movement in his K. 458: both movements are in 6/8, and both
present a similarly ornamented version of the opening theme immediately after the
first four measures; Haydn's movement is labeled Allegro vivace assai, Mozart's
Vivace assai. (The special effect evoked by 6/8 meter is reflected in the soubriquet for
K. 458, "The Hunt.") Apart from this imitation, K. 464 is the only one of the
"Haydn" quartets in 3/4 or 6/8. (Of the six Mozart string quintets only one, the E-flat
Quintet K. 614, has an opening movement in 6/8.)
35 The sketches for this movement show Beethoven developing this idea gradu-
ally. In the early stages the forceful groups of eighth notes (with their gruppetti) come
on the first beat of the bar, followed by rests. See the sketchbook Berlin, Staatsbib-
liothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Mus. ms. autogr. Beethoven Grasnick 2, p. 64.
Grasnick 2 is available in facsimile and transcription in Wilhelm Virneisel, ed.,
Beethoven: Ein Skizzenbuch zu Streichquartetten aus Op. i8, 2 vols. (Bonn: Beethoven-
haus, 1972, 1974). Sketches for op. i8, no. 5, would seem to survive only in this
manuscript and in one leaf from the "Kafka sketchbook" (London, British Library,
Add. MS 2980oi, fol. 39-162). See Johnson, Tyson, and Winter, The Beethoven
Sketchbooks, 72, 77, 87, n. 5, and 463, n. i. For more on the "Kafka" leaf see below,
n. 45. Fuller sketches for op. I8, no. 5, are missing and were presumably contained
in a sketchbook from 1799-I8oo. See Brandenburg, "The First Version," 137;
Johnson, Tyson, and Winter, The Beethoven Sketchbooks, 87; and Richard Kramer,
"'Das Organische der Fuge': On the Autograph of Beethoven's Quartet in F Major,
Opus 59, No. i ," in The String Quartets of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven: Studies of the
Autograph Manuscripts, ed. Christoff Wolff, Isham Library Papers, vol. 3 (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Department of Music, 1980), 226. Donald Greenfield,
"Sketch Studies for Three Movements of Beethoven's String Quartets, Opus 18 No.
i and 2" (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1983), 31-35, lists the variants for op.
i8, no. 5, as preserved in a manuscript copy of the op. i8 set in the Lobkowitz
collection in the National Museum in Prague.
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BEETHOVEN'S "MOZART" QUARTET 49
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50 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY
7 The second segment of Mozart's phrase suggests E minor, the key chosen by
Beethoven to open his delaying maneuver.
38 Beethoven marked repeats for both halves of his movement, as did Mozart,
indeed as was traditional up to this time; in op. i8, however, Beethoven indicated
both repeats only for the quartets nos. 5 and 6.
39 Kerman, The Beethoven Quartets, 58.
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BEETHOVEN'S "MOZART" QUARTET 51
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52 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY
Example 4
Mozart, String Quartet in A Major, K. 464, second movement, Menuetto, mm.
1-38
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Neue Ausgabe slimtlicher Werke. Serie VII: Kammer-
musik; Werkgruppe 20: Streichquartette und Quartette mit einem Blasintrument;
Abteilung 1: Streichquartette; Bd. 2. Ed. Ludwig Finscher. Kassel: Birenreiter,
1962. Reprinted by permission of Baerenreiter Music Corporation.
Menuetto oon
Violin 1
Violin 2j
Viola ocl
f p f PP
Violoncello . ,,--b
f P f P
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BEETHOVEN'S "MOZART" QUARTET 53
Example 4 (continued)
phrase. I mo t I I - n-t./
' R op
f ,- "o
?d
,- F 'j.] I ~~~dddI .
" _ - ., _J e r
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54 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY
repeat is written out so that the tune can be given to the viola an octave
lower and the counterpoint enriched and accommodated to four parts.
The tune itself owes little or nothing to Mozart.43 What is owed to
Mozart, apart from the overt adoption of the minuet genre and the
placement of the movement as a whole, is the idea of counterpoint and
the use of rests. Of all the op. i8 quartets, only two have minuets:
quartets nos. 4 and 5; and none of the four scherzo movements nor the
C-minor Minuet embrace counterpoint in anything like this manner.
Indeed at the end of the second strain of the A-major Minuet, what at
first sounds like a conventional internal repeat of the first strain blossoms
into quite intricate counterpoint, as viola, second violin, and first violin
engage in a three-part canon of the opening melody.
The principal gesture with rests comes in the second strain also, as
it does with Mozart. The music has turned rather dramatically to C#
minor, the same key Mozart turned to unexpectedly (see the deceptive
cadence in mm. 23-24 of Example 4). Beethoven presents a six-
measure phrase over a QC pedal (see Example 5, mm. 39-44), low in
the strings and growing with a crescendo to fortissimo, the sole use of
that dynamic in the whole movement. It is followed by a hole in the
fabric, an entire measure of rests plus two more beats of rests, before
the calm resumption of the music from the first strain. The disruption
thus caused is neither explained nor resolved. It is particularly
interesting to note that the phrase is structured as the reverse of
Mozart's: it ends with the three repeated staccato notes with which
Mozart's phrase begins.
The trios of the two movements are quite dissimilar. Mozart's is a
study in disruption: of meter, dynamics, phrase-length, harmony, affect,
figure, and style. It is in E major, and matches the turbulence of the first
movement exquisitely, even to the point of adopting triplets for its
second strain. Beethoven's trio remains in A. It is a lilting liindler,
clouded by consistently off-beat accents. What the pieces do have in
common is a marked thickness of texture, which contrasts with the
counterpoint of their minuets. All four instruments are rarely silent in
the Mozart trio, and for a large amount of the Beethoven trio either the
first violin or the viola is double-stopping.
4 One might see the opening ictus of the tune on E and its descent of a fourth to
B as a small debt, but this appears to me to fall in or very near the area of necessary
commonality, i.e., that collection of traits that would belong to large numbers of
tunes framed in A major.
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BEETHOVEN'S "MOZART" QUARTET 55
Example 5
Beethoven, String Quartet in A Major, op. 18, no. 5, second movement, Menu-
etto, mm. 1-24 and 39-45.
Violin 1
Violin 2
Viola __-_
pFsp,.
p
MID it 36" p
ME" a "r e ' ?-, I J
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56 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY
Example 5 (continued)
cresc.
cresc.
cresc.
cresc.
Kerman treats the next pair of movements well. The facts are as
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BEETHOVEN'S "MOZART" QUARTET 57
ftf
46 Mozart continued redrafting this movement even into his autograph score. He
originally planned five variations, but added the fourth (minor) variation at the end,
simultaneously renumbering what had been variation number 4 to number 6 and
adding the coda with its continuation of the rhythmic motive. See Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart, The Six "Haydn" Quartets: Facsimile of the Autograph Manuscripts, fols. 50v-52.
This is but one gauge of Mozart's remark in his dedication to Haydn that the quartets
represented "il frutto di una lunga, e laboriosa fatica." Another may be seen in the
unusual care with which Mozart corrected (and continued to revise) the parts of all the
quartets for the first edition. The changes between the autograph and the first edition
have been traced by Alfred Einstein in the Critical Report to his edition of the late
Mozart quartets. See Einstein, ed., W. A. Mozart: The Ten Celebrated String Quartets,
Publications of the Paul Hirsch Music Library, vol. 12 (London: Novello, 1945). For
further comments on Mozart's "labor," see Marius Flothius, "A Close Reading of the
Autographs of Mozart's Ten Late Quartets," in The String Quartets of Haydn, Mozart,
and Beethoven: Studies of the Autograph Manuscripts, 155, I57-58, and i6o; and Tyson,
introduction to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart/Facsimile, x.
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58 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY
measures long, the second half is io measures long (see Example 8).
Mozart does not smooth over this extension of the second half; he
emphasizes it by means of a deceptive cadence (m. 16) and by means
of an increase in dynamics (crescendo to forte), rhythmic activity
(sixteenth-note triplets), melodic skips, and articulation (the first
staccato in the theme). This extension, thus emphasized, becomes a
landmark in the ensuing variations. It is one of Mozart's principal
weapons in the search for continuity and variety. After all, the
movement is 186 andante measures long, even without the repeats.
Example 8
Mozart, String Quartet in A Major, K. 464, third movement, Andante, mm. 1-18
(piano reduction)
Andante
l sotto voce
0P
crescendo
P crescendo
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BEETHOVEN'S "MOZART" QUARTET 59
Beethoven, String Quartet in A Major, op. 18, no. 5, third movement, Andante
cantabile, mm. 1-16 (piano reduction)
I I I I r I1
1 2 3 1 2 3 4 1 1 2
Andante cantabile
6 3 1 2 3
.i i"A"
47 In an early sketch for this movement Beethoven had a very square melody,
which he labelled "Pastoral." See Grasnick 2, p. 67.
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60 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY
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BEETHOVEN'S "MOZART" QUARTET 6
Example io
Mozart, String Quartet in A Major, K. 464, last movement, Allegro non tro
mm. 1-17, 82-87, and 112-21
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Neue Ausgabe siimtlicher Werke. Serie VII: Kammer-
musik; Werkgruppe 20: Streichquartette und Quartette mit einem Blasintrument;
Abteilung 1: Streichquartette; Bd. 2. Ed. Ludwig Finscher. Kassel: Barenreiter,
1962. Reprinted by permission of Baerenreiter Music Corporation.
Allegro non troppo
Violin 1
Violin 2
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62 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY
Example io (continued)
Exampl I, mm. 84 II
f _
E) ,
"J ) I I (
the -doul b- a e. T
aIvaenchniqe betweenDand
opening movement. Dynamic
manipulations of the indicate
insistence on patterns of 6
ambivale nce between
transformations DAl and
of 3/4, are D
p
Example IO, mmm. 8-4).
A dramatic gesture opens
the double bar (see Examp
plunge out disconcertingly to
fabric, indicated by fermatas
The gesture is not repeated; t
In technique and emotional im
of the second strain of the
Mozart achieves a moment
the development section, w
halt on V of vi, the "poin
completely new passage in
notes provide momentary
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BEETHOVEN'S "MOZART" QUARTET 63
Example Ila
Beethoven, String Quartet in A Major, op. 18, no. 5, last movement, Allegro,
mm. 1-6
Allegro
Violin 1
Violaoncello
p
Example jIIb
Mozart, Symphony No. 38 in D Major, K. 504, ("Prague"), last movement,
Presto, mm. 1-13, strings only
Presto
Violin 1 F., I I, ,r . -, F IN
Violin 1
Violin
Violin 2-.7
2 A I A IAt
F 4L?op-
..J'
i ] , I-""
I t.,o
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64 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY
Beethoven's finale is also in sonata form, with only the first repeat
indicated. This movement too is lighter in tone and more delicate than
its model. In fact, here Beethoven, searching for a light touch,
actually imitates a different work of Mozart's: the last movement of
the "Prague" Symphony. The three-eighth-note pickups, the tum-
bling entries, and the sketchy counterpoint are all borrowed from the
symphony (see Examples ii a and ii b).
Beethoven turns again to K. 464 for material to highlight his
second key area (see Example I2). What he borrows here is the idea of
first-species counterpoint from the middle of Mozart's development
section (see Example io, mm. i 12-21). The contrast is wildly
effective: long notes in learned style to set off the comic-opera
opening.50 The drop to pianissimo is prepared by a forte halt on V of
V the measure before (see Example 12, m. 35). Beethoven's first
species also multiplies into a Fuxian exercise (fourth, third, and fifth
species) for a gradual return to eighth-note motion and the codetta of
the exposition.
Perhaps the most overt acknowledgement to Mozart comes in the
final measures of the quartet. Mozart's quartet ends surprisingly
softly, especially in the light of the preceding turmoil. Or perhaps it
should not be surprising: understating, holding back at the end,
silhouettes all that has gone before. A nimble new cadential figure,
capable of moving up or down with equal ease, is combined with the
opening motive and gently disguises the fact that the movement has
ended exactly as it began (see Example I3a).
Beethoven also uses his opening figure to end the finale. Before
that it does service as a repeated cadential figure, scurrying over
first-species whole notes from the second key area. The whole
passage, with its tiptoeing wit, is sculpted very much like Mozart's
last page. Beethoven's ending is also quiet after forte, also a surprise,
and even more inconclusive, with its doubled third in octaves on the
top of the final chord (see Example i3b).
50 The effect is the opposite of that obtained in the famous finale of K. 387, a
quartet that Beethoven is known to have copied out in full (see Johnson, Tyson,
Winter, The Beethoven Sketchbooks, 26, 29, and 598; Kramer, "'Das Organische der
Fuge,"' 23o; and Johnson, "The Artaria Collection," 21I.
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BEETHOVEN'S "MOZART" QUARTET 65
Example 12
Beethoven, String Quartet in A Major, op. 18, no. 5, last movement, Allegro,
mm. 34-51
reIs c as 1I P
_cresc .
r cresc.
cresc P
cresc. PP
masterpiece
The quartet
Mozart's oe
degree. Ther
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66 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY
Example i3a
Mozart, String Quartet in A Major, K. 464, last movement, Allegro non troppo,
mm. 249-62
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Neue Ausgabe samtlicher Werke. Serie VII: Kammer-
musik; Werkgruppe 20: Streichquartette und Quartette mit einem Blasintrument;
Abteilung 1: Streichquartette; Bd. 2. Ed. Ludwig Finscher. Kassel: Bairenreiter,
1962. Reprinted by permission of Baerenreiter Music Corporation.
249
S7 I I
PP
Ies*iA 44%,-
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BEETHOVEN'S "MOZART" QUARTET 67
Example I3b
Beethoven, String Quartet in A Major, op. 18, no. 5, last movement, Allegro,
mm. 286-300
P P P
,p P
cresc.
cresc.
cresc.
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68 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY
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BEETHOVEN'S "MOZART" QUARTET 69
53 See Robert Winter, "The Bifocal Close and the Evolution of the Viennese
Classical Style," this JOURNAL 42 (1989): 275-337.
54 Winter, "The Bifocal Close," 322-23-.
55 See mm. 24-25 and 164-65 of the first movement of op. 18, no. 5, and Winter,
"The Bifocal Close," 331.
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70 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY
Example 14
Beethoven, String Quartet in A minor, op. 132, second movement, Allegro ma
non tanto, mm. 1-17
Violin 1
Violin 2
Viola O
.P,,,
ad W?5 F P Jk
The sixth of Beethoven's set, op. I8, no. 6, also overtly imit
Mozart's op. . 0, fo. 6, otherwise known as K. 465, the "Dissonant"
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BEETHOVEN'S "MOZART" QUARTET 71
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72 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY
Facsimile Editions
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: The Six "Haydn" String Quartets: Facsimile of the
Autograph Manuscripts in the British Library, Add. MS 37763. British
Library Music Facsimiles, vol. 4. London: The British Library, 1985.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: String Quartet K. 464. New York: The Robert
Owen Lehman Foundation, 1969.
Sketchbooks
Modern Studies
Anderson, Emily. The Letters of Beethoven, Collected, Translated and Edited with
an Introduction, Appendixes, Notes and Indexes. 3 vols. New York, I961.
Reprint. New York: W. W. Norton, 1985.
Bloom, Harold. The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1973.
Brandenburg, Sieghard. "Beethovens Streichquartette Op. I8." In Beethoven
und B6bmen: Beitr4ge zu Biographie und Wirkungsgeschichte Beethovens, edited
by Sieghard Brandenburg and Martella Gutierrez-Denhoff, 259-310o.
Bonn: Beethoven-Haus, 1988.
. "The First Version of Beethoven's G Major Quartet, Op. 18, No.
2." Music and Letters 58 (1977): 127-52.
Brown, Howard Mayer. "Emulation, Competition, and Homage: Imitation
and Theories of Imitation in the Renaissance." This JOURNAL 35 (1982):
1-48.
Burkholder, J. Peter. "Brahms and Twentieth-Century Classical Music."
i9th Century Music 8 (1984): 75-83.
S '"'Quotation' and Paraphrase in Ives's Second Symphony." i9th
Century Music 11 (1987): 3-25.
Butler, H(arold) E(dgeworth) (ed.). The Institutio Oratoria of Quintilian. 4 vols.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958.
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BEETHOVEN'S "MOZART" QUARTET 73
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74 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY
The literary critic Harold Bloom coined the term "anxiety of influence"
to cover stages in the emancipation of poets from their powerful forebears.
Much has been written on the shadow cast by Beethoven over later
nineteenth-century composers, but Beethoven too had to come to terms with
powerful influences. It has long been recognized that the slow movement of
Beethoven's String Quartet, op. i8, no. 5, is modeled on that of Mozart's
String Quartet in A major, K. 464. Here it is shown that in fact, the
imitation involves not only the slow movement but all four of the move-
ments. This provides an opportunity to examine in detail Beethoven's
technique of reinterpreting his model. Indeed an examination of Beethoven's
"anxiety" at different stages of his career may lead us to a closer understand-
ing of his creative development. Toward the end of his life Beethoven
imitated one of the movements from K. 464 again. Here may be seen the final
stage in the confrontation of his anxiety.
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